


you warm me to my core and you left me wanting more

by dizzyondreams



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, M/M, Trans Male Character, Trans Newton Geiszler, hermann is too collected for 1am, newt has six jobs and is an overworked and sleep deprived mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8008330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzyondreams/pseuds/dizzyondreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt regarded him for a second, weighed up the pros and cons for what he was about to suggest in his head. Con, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a bed. Pro, he had the steadiest hands in the Western hemisphere. Con, caffeine jitters were very real. Pro, if he drank another energy shot, he would transcend caffeine jitters and also possibly his body. Was that a pro? His mouth was moving before he could really come to a conclusion. “I can tattoo you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you warm me to my core and you left me wanting more

Doctor Newton Geiszler, PhD (times four, thank you very much), semi-professional risk taker and amateur exotic animals expert, was no stranger to stress. He’d been held up at gunpoint at his shitty gas station job, had subsisted on nothing but five hour energy shots and the glow of his computer screen, had once broken three fingers and still turned up to lab the next day to titrate until his eyes burned. 

But this, this was cataclysmic. This made every other time he’d been stressed seem like child’s play. If he thought someone’s pet tegu who he regularly babysat eating one of his socks was stressful, then he didn’t even know what this was.

“So, can you do it?”

The guy had the most obnoxiously long eyelashes Newt had ever seen. His mouth was pursed in one flat, long line. Newt wanted to put his mouth all over him.

He chewed his nails. “I mean, dude, I can’t _personally_ do it?” He was on his second five hour energy shot, watermelon, and the taste was cloying at the back of his throat. He felt jittery and though he’d taken a step to the left of himself. His cuticles were bleeding.

The guy peered around the room, then came back to settle on Newt with a frown. “If you can’t tattoo me, then what do you do here?”

Newt laughed, too loud and a little desperate. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

The guy looked distinctly unimpressed by that, stared at Newt down his nose in a way which made Newt’s gut feel a little weird. Was he sweating? How could he discreetly check if he was sweating?

“Could you perhaps get someone who would know?” The guy asked, razor sharp polite. 

“We don’t get many people in at uh,” he checked his watch, “Damn, shit, 1 a.m? I need another energy shot.”

“I guarantee that you do not.” The guy sniffed, big old mouth flattening even further. “I suppose I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“No! Wait!” Newt thrust a (sweaty) hand across the reception desk. The guy, who had just turned on his heel to leave, gave him a suspicious look over his shoulder. Newt took a moment to see himself through another’s eyes, and realised that perhaps wild and shouting wasn’t attractive in this guy’s book. Or anyone’s, for that matter. “I can make you an appointment.” He said, turning away to dig for the appointment book. 

“Very well.” The guy said, digging in the pockets of his cavernous parka before extracting a dorky pair of horn rimmed glasses.

“You know, you don’t look like the normal sort we get around here.” Newt said conversationally, flipping through the book for the right day. “A lot more,” he looked up and glanced him up and down, “Tweed.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” He muttered, and at the tilt of Newt’s head he rolled his eyes. “I’d like to get the coordinates of the star Pollux, only small.”

“Huh.” Newt said, raising his eyebrows and leaning forward on his elbows, book forgotten. “You a Gemini? Someone out there got the Castor?” Maybe there was a less nerdy way to ask if the dude was single, but Newt couldn’t ever quit his geeky core.

The tips of the dude’s ears went a little red, and Newt was afraid for a second before he shook his head. 

“Sweet.” Newt said, and didn’t miss the way the guy flushed a little more at that. “Name?” 

“Hermann Gottlieb.”

Newt forgot his probable sweat and caffeine jitters for a second, and grinned at Hermann around the pen in his mouth. “Du bist Deutsch?” 

“Ja.” Hermann replied, brow creased. “Ist das ein Berliner akzent?”

“I’m impressed you got that through all this American.” Newt said happily, “I haven’t lived in Berlin since before I left for university.”

“Surely that wasn’t long ago?” Hermann asked, eyeing Newt’s stretched out MIT t-shirt. 

“Six years ago.” Newt replied, glancing up from where he was scrawling Hermann’s name down. He crooked an eyebrow at Hermann’s look of surprise. “Ich bin ein wunderkind.” He said teasingly.

“You don’t say.” Hermann murmured, and now Newt could hear it, a trace of German under that stuffy English accent.

His heart was beating very fast in his chest, and he had a suspicion that it was due to the milky skin of Hermann’s throat rather than the energy shots. Or okay, probably both, but Newt was a diehard romantic. “I’m Newton, but everyone calls me Newt.”

“Well I certainly won’t be.” Hermann said, pulling a face at the nickname. Newt grinned, very awake and very pleased.

“So what brings you here so late?” He asked, arranging himself artfully against the counter and propping his chin on his hand. The pen was still at his mouth, and he didn’t miss the way Hermann’s eyes flicked down to it and then away. He wondered if Hermann blushed down his chest too, all that white skin pink as a kiss.

“I don’t know.” He said stiffly, shifting his weight off his left leg with a grimace. 

“Oh shit, dude, you wanna take a seat?” Newt said, straightening up and leaning across to flip the partition up. Hermann regarded him silently for a second.

“Am I staying?” He asked, and Newt really began to question when the stuffy old English type had began to do it for him. That totally innocuous question had made him get a little bit warm under the metaphorical collar, and he shrugged, trying for cool and collected but landing squarely in jerky and weird.

“I mean, unless you’ve gotta be someone else at past 1 a.m.” He replied, rather unconvincingly. Of course he had somewhere to be, it was his _bed_ like the rest of the normal population.

Hermann seemed to consider that for a second. “I don’t.” He said finally, surprising Newt.

“Hop on over, then.” He said, voice a little strangled to his own ears. 

Newt discovered that sharing a space with the guy without a counter separating them was going to be trying. What was he supposed to do with his feet? Hermann was sitting neatly on a stool opposite, one leg crossed over the other and eyes on the art on the walls. Newt wiped his clammy hands on his jeans and wished he’d worn a clean t-shirt. 

“I was just walking.” Hermann said absently, and when Newt looked at him in askance he elaborated. “In regards to your question. I was just walking, and saw the shop.” He shook his head, that big mouth twitching into a self deprecating smile. “It’s foolish.”

“Not at all, man!” Newt cried. “Like 80% of my tattoos are snap decisions, impulse control is a myth.”

“I suppose this doesn’t really count as an impulsive decision now, does it?” Hermann asked, eyes on the art on Newt’s arms. 

Newt regarded him for a second, weighed up the pros and cons for what he was about to suggest in his head. Con, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a bed. Pro, he had the steadiest hands in the Western hemisphere. Con, caffeine jitters were very real. Pro, if he drank another energy shot, he would transcend caffeine jitters and also possibly his body. Was that a pro? His mouth was moving before he could really come to a conclusion. “I can tattoo you.”

Hermann stared flatly at him for a moment that stretched for an eternity. Newt grinned nervously. Had he just put this guy off? He supposed it wasn’t very normal to offer to etch something permanent and painful on someone like, fifteen minutes after meeting them. That was some after the third date shit right there.

“I don’t suspect you have a tattooing license, since you don’t even know what your actual position is here.” Hermann said finally, hands folded over the carved head of his cane, sharp and neat.

“You’d be right,” Newt hedged, “But! I’ve tattooed myself and a ton of friends loads of times. Super safe, super clean, no staph infections at all.” At Hermann’s quirked eyebrow he spread his hands. “I’m a biologist! The autoclave here is basically another limb.”

“Biology is messy and dirty.” Hermann replied, but he was squinting like he was on the verge of considering it.

“Take a risk, dude.” Newt breathed, leaning forward from his seat. Hermann scowled.

“You are utterly charmless.” 

“I’m not hearing a no from you though, am I?” Newt cupped his hand around his ear, grinning when Hermann rolled his eyes and glanced away. “C’mon! Think of the story!” He drew himself up straight and said, with his best British accent, “I let a too-smart for his own good little punk stick me with needles because deep down I love excitement.”

“I’m glad you’re so self aware.” Hermann said scathingly, and pursed his lips as he considered it. “You’ll wear gloves?”

“It’ll be the most sterile thing that’s ever happened to you, promise.” Newt said earnestly, “Plus, just some numbers and letters? Piece of cake.” 

“I won’t hesitate to sue if you give me gangrene.” Hermann said, but he drew himself to his feet and gestured to Newt to get moving. “Lead on.”

Newt bounced down off his chair, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Alright, let’s get a stencil drawn up and get you strapped down.”

“Pardon me?” Hermann said from behind him, and Newt just grinned before leading him through to the back.

\------

“Red ink?”

“Please.”

Newt snapped a pair of rubber gloves on, trying very hard to look anywhere but at the shirtless Hermann sitting stiff in the chair to his side. God, he was so pale, a blank canvas. Newt wanted to trace the bumps of his ribs with his tongue, follow the sinewy muscles of his arms and the arc of his collarbone. He swallowed heavily, filled the ink cap up as he arranged his work station.

“Ribs hurt like a bitch.” He supplied helpfully, swivelling round in his stool to grab his antiseptic spray. 

“You’d know first hand, I presume?” Hermann asked, skin pebbling with goosebumps as Newt sprayed his side down. 

“I’ve got my whole torso covered.” Newt said, a little distractedly as he reached for the stencils as he tried to plot in his head how the rigid lines of numbers could flow with Hermann’s ribcage. “Can you stand?”

Hermann stood, leaning on the stair for support as Newt applied the stencil. “What would possess you to cover your entire torso?” He asked, lifting his arm and turning to see in the mirror. “Perfect.”

“Started off as covering up some top surgery scars.” Newt said as he weighed the tattoo gun in his hand. “But the tattoo bug is very real. You ready?”

Hermann eyed the gun in Newt’s hand, but nodded as he shifted over onto his side. “Make it quick, this position is hell on my hip.”

“Got it.” Newt murmured as he switched the gun on. It buzzed to life in his hand, the sound loud in the close quiet of the shop. Trying to separate the violet stencil from the distracting stretch of Hermann’s side, he leaned in close. “It’s just like a sharp scratch.” He warned. “If it really sucks, just tell me to stop.”

“You’re surprising me with your professionalism, Newton.” Hermann said, voice hitching a little as needle touched skin.

“Hey, I’m the picture of professionalism at all times.” Newt retorted, like he hadn’t been cataloguing the curve of Hermann’s waist, the jut of his hip to his mind for the past five minutes. 

“You’re wearing pink nail varnish and no shoes.” Hermann reminded him.

“Gender isn’t real, man.” Newt replied blandly, and had to take the needle off of Hermann’s skin for a second as he huffed out a laugh.

They fell silent, the buzzing of the gun the only sound in the shop. It was so completely intimate, the rise and fall of Hermann’s breath under his hand, the way his skin yielded under the needle, the total trust Hermann was giving to him. Newt wiped at the blood and ink and winced with Hermann at the burn of it.

“Scheiße.” Hermann hissed, knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists.

“Worst part of the whole fucking thing is wiping it down, sorry.” Newt muttered. “It’s almost finished.”

“Thank god for that.”

Five minutes later, Hermann was examining the swollen numbers in the mirror, a funny little smile on his face. Newt watched him out of the corner of his eye as he wiped down his work station, smiling as Hermann twisted this way and that to look at it.

“Pretty nice, right?” Newt prompted him, stripping off his gloves and trying to shake the warmth of Hermann’s skin as easily. 

“It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.” Hermann allowed, but the warm look he shot Newt was all he needed to know. “Thank you.” Hermann said, sincere now. “This is definitely one of my better impulsive decisions.”

“First and last, I assume.” Newt said happily, coming over to join him. His eyes burned from tiredness and from focusing on the tiny red letters, but the look Hermann cast him when he thought he was busy appraising the tattoo made it worth it. “Let’s get you bandaged up, huh?”

\-----

“How much do I owe you?” Hermann asked later, as he pulled his sweater gingerly over his head. Newt, silently bemoaning the loss of all that unblemished pale skin, shook his head.

“Nah man, consider it pro bono. I’m not even a real artist, I couldn’t charge you shit.”

Hermann looked about ready to argue, but then shut his mouth and appraised Newt silently for a second. Newt rocked back on his heels, a little uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

“I’ll take you for a coffee.” Hermann said eventually, turning away to pull his coat on. “If you’d like that.”

“I would!” Newt said, over-eager. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, instantly embarrassed. “I mean, yeah, that’d work.”

“Good.” Hermann said. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and Newt felt his heart leap a little in his chest, definitely not a side effect of the caffeine this time. “I’ll pick you up from here tomorrow afternoon?”

“Uh,” Newt made a face. “Long story, but I’m babysitting a three foot long lizard tomorrow…”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading ! this whole idea came from a convo w/ a pal about newt working a ton of surreal part time jobs
> 
> title from an act of kindness by bastille
> 
> uhh the tattoo itself is: +28° 01′ 34.3160″ , 07h 45m 18.94987s which is like, the space equivalent of longitude and latitude. space coordinates! i couldn't work out how to slip it in the story without it being weird and awkward, so here u go in case u wanted to know.


End file.
